


the sea rises to meet us

by scrxbble



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Hot Boys Summer, featuring it's the beach and they're boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrxbble/pseuds/scrxbble
Summary: a love letter to beach week from the band of boys
Comments: 21
Kudos: 15





	the sea rises to meet us

**Author's Note:**

> make no mistake from the title (from hozier's be) this is just indulgent. i didn't edit this but i did shamelessly steal from my real life to write this. shoutout to naddcord hbs lore this follows that only in that it's the lore that exists right now and i have no original ideas

Mavrus couldn’t quite remember when he’d gone to sleep last night. He remembered the start of the haze - the orange crush that Mac had made him for the beach, the beer that Tred had tossed him when they got back to the house, the two or three or five beers he’d had after that. After that seventh drink, still too soon after the beach to be nursing them, the night had slowed down and sped up all at once - the hours got faster but the moments got slower, so he could remember in perfect detail Mike, making a dinner of instant noodles with added crick elf seasoning and leaves from a bag in the fridge that turned out to be, on a taste test, basil or Tred’s standing on Mac’s shoulders to add the top beer can to a 36-can-tall structure dubbed the “beeramid” or Mac’s third visit out to the deck with Mike to discuss something deeply relevant to Mac and likely trivial to Mike, but the times in between them were a blur of couches and bottles.

A knock echoed on the door and Mike stuck his head and shoulders through the ajar door. “Yo. Mac’s making bacon and I’m making eggs. Downstairs in ten.”

“Yeah, dude, you got it.” Of course Hungry Mike was making breakfast. Dude’s always gotta be snacking. Mavrus yawned, almost knocked over a beer can on his nightstand - not quite empty, though it was after he drained the last of it - and slipped on a bathrobe to take a quick shower.

Someone - Mac, probably - had set up a minifridge just outside the bathroom, and Mavrus grabbed a cold beer to take in, tossing a few empty cans that were remnants of his friends’ mornings into the already overflowing can next to the toilet. If there was one thing Mavrus’ boys appreciated, it was an ice cold shower beer - or three, if you judged by the number of cans stacked on the side of the tub - to kick off the day. 

Shower finished and beer consumed, Mavrus trudged downstairs and slid into a seat at the oval-shaped dining room table. Carl’s aunt’s house was full of tchotchkes and knickknacks and the table runner, which showed an image of the beach that you could see just as easily from the back deck with the words  _ Go with the Flow _ emblazoned across it, was one of about five hundred in the dining room. This morning, though, it was covered by a plate of bacon leaking fat onto paper towels and scrambled eggs with a single slice of orange Bahumian cheese melted on top.

“Mike didn’t buy shredded cheese at the store,” Tred explained from across the table as Mavrus sat down, staring at the slightly warped square on top of the eggs. “Or think to shred the slices he got.” He passed Mavrus a beer and grabbed a piece of bacon.

“It’s like noon, dude, you think my brain is functioning before two p.m.? Pass me one of those.” Mike emerged in an apron tight over his dragonborn chest and sat down heavily, accepting the brew thankfully and nearly draining it. Mac followed, another plate of bacon sizzling in his hands, and sat down at the last chair, taking a beer of his own.

“I just want to let you all know,” Mac started before they could dig in, “that you guys are my fucking boys, and I really appreciate all of you. I couldn’t imagine this summer without you guys, and-”

“Shut the fuck up, dude, I’m starving,” Mavrus interrupted. He could feel Mac’s eyes on him from his right, and wasn’t surprised at the message that came into his head a moment later as the group grabbed slices of crispy bacon and spooned scrambled eggs onto their plate.

_ Hey man, that wasn’t super cool of you. Just want to make sure everything’s good because that was a little aggro, dude. You doing okay? You wanna go out to the deck and talk about it? _

Mavrus glanced up at Tred, eyes heavy with a mixture of annoyance and desperation, and Tred immediately said, mouth full of heavily cheesed eggs from the center of the plate, “Hey, Mac, dude, I wanted to talk to you about like, my music. Do you think later we could like, go out to the porch and I could show you some of my songs?”

This was, as far as Mavrus could tell, both an apt distraction and a genuine question. He gave Tred a nod of thanks and took another scoop of scrambled eggs, avoiding the layers of curiously stretchy cheese in the middle.

Breakfast finished, dishes unwashed in the sink, beers consumed and replaced and consumed again, they spent the day much as they had the day before and the entire week prior - Mac juicing oranges while Mike gathered up snacks and towels and snacks and Mavrus found his still-wet swim trunks hanging from the flagpole on the front porch and pulled them on under his embroidered robe. Tred sat on the couch as an episode of Bilmore Boys played, curating a playlist on his speaking stone, Mike glancing over his shoulder every so often as he passed and reporting back to Mac in a low voice the number of Tred Nevers Originals and their titles, usually prompting a few seconds of Mac staring intently at Tred as he Messaged him before returning to mixing drinks in pitchers and fetching koozies so the beach guards wouldn’t cite them for open containers - “It’s not usually an issue, it’s just the principle of the thing,” Carl had explained when they’d rented the beach house. “They won’t bother you if they have deniability.” Household chores not done but drinks made, they spent the day at the beach, drinking and splashing and sometimes jotting down secretive notes and then leaving the black Moleskine open to a page covered in cramped handwriting and glancing over every so often to see if anyone else was reading it.

The last thing was, admittedly, mostly Tred.

When Mac was complaining of a sunburn and wet jeans - they told him to wear trunks daily, really, it wasn’t their fault - they went back to the house, hiking with chairs on their backs down three streets and avoiding the throngs of the boardwalk, where Mike had been swindled by a ring toss game and Mavrus had almost come to blows with a funnel cake stand owner. At the house, Bilmore Boys had been replaced by some horse show that no one was disgusted with enough to change, and Mac fell into an early evening nap on the couch while Mike prepared dinner, if you could call grilled cheese “dinner”, which Mavrus could.

“Hey, Mav,” Mike called into the living room, where Mavrus was sipping a beer - his eighth, maybe, but who could say - and half-watching the television, which had switched to a Galaderon murder mystery show with some old ladies solving the case with gardening. Mac was snoozing in the armchair next to him, still-sandy feet propped up on the ottoman next to a discarded visor that read “Nauti-girl” across the band. The beeramid still stood tall next to the TV, the cans they had been collecting slowly coalescing into another level that threatened to topple the whole thing.

“Sup?” Mavrus replied, half-turning.

“You think five slices of cheese is too many for a grilled cheese?”

“I dunno, dude.”

“Okay, leave it up to Big Chef.”

“Fucking who?”

Mike’s head appeared around the corner, looking hurt. “Me, dude.”

“You’re Big Chef?”

“Yeah, dude.”

“You can’t nickname yourself Big Chef.”

Mike’s head disappeared, and a sigh came from the kitchen. “Then who else is gonna do it?”

Mavrus returned to his half-asleep TV watching, interrupted once by Tred wandering downstairs with a journal that he dropped by Mac’s feet with a nonchalant air and a second time by the smell of smoke, a yelp, and a beeping that woke even Mac.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Mavrus was already heading for the kitchen, ignoring the smoke that didn’t faze him. “I think Mike burned the grilled cheese.”

Mike had burned the grilled cheese, sending a scent of charred bread and more of the crick elf seasoning from last night into the air. Mac, the only one particularly vulnerable to the still-smoking stove, took a beer out to the deck while the other three salvaged what they could, which ended up being eight sandwiches that they took out to Mac on the porch, and found another tragedy.

“I think my vape is broken.”

Mike put a silent hand on Mac’s shoulder. Tred shut his notebook and took up a position at Mac’s other side. Mavrus sighed internally and searched for the thread of the Message he hadn’t replied to earlier.

_ You wanna talk about it on the other porch, dude? _

Mac met his eyes, and Mavrus could see them begin to water. 

_ Yeah, man. That’d be nice. _

They adjourned to the front porch with half the grilled cheeses and Mavrus’s arm around Mac’s shoulder. Neither said anything for a while, just chewed sandwiches that were half burnt and half cold - five slices  _ was _ too many, it turned out - and drank beers lukewarm from the evening heat.

“You wanna have a funeral for it?” Mavrus finally suggested. “We can’t revivify a rig, but we can give it a Frostwind burial.”

Mac sniffed and wiped at his eyes casually. “Yeah, dude. That’d be nice.”

Mavrus took charge when they returned inside, sending Mike upstairs to fill the bathtub and flinging open cabinets to search for tinfoil to form a boat that the rig could be set afloat in. Tred was already compiling another playlist and rigging a flashlight up to the towel bar so that the room could be appropriately somber. Mac just sat, rig in hand, finally allowing Mavrus to wrap it in toilet paper and set it in the tinfoil craft in the bathtub while Tred’s music played and Mike looked on from the bathroom doorway.

“You want to say a few words before we light it?”

“Yeah, dude.” Mac took a deep breath and another sip of beer, then said, standing in front of a full bathtub in a dark half-bath with his three best friends, “I’ve only had you for a couple months, but we’ve been through a lot together. I know you meant a lot to me and to everyone who I shared you with - and that’s a lot of people - and I’m sorry to see you go. But I’m glad that I have friends who are here with me, and you three really mean so much to me, and if you ever want to talk-”

“Mike, light it up,” Mavrus intoned solemnly over the last words of Mac’s eulogy.

A thin acoustic guitar warbled out of Tred’s speaking stone as Mike stepped forward, knelt, and blew a small stream of flame onto the mound of paper towels and metal that floated off-center in the small tub. Mac sniffled again and Mavrus kept one hand firmly on his shoulder as the toilet paper caught alight, sending flickering gold across their faces.

Mike spoke. “We should, uh, probably make sure that we don’t clog Carl’s aunt’s bathtub with a funeral for a vape rig.”

“Shh,” Mavrus said. “Let it happen.”

They watched until the fire was out and the rig was still untouched in the tinfoil, surrounded by toilet paper ash and the remnants of cardboard scraps. They watched until Mac stepped forward and grabbed the rig from the middle, wincing at the surviving heat. They watched and followed as Mac stepped outside and walked down to the edge of the small canal behind their house where people parked boats. They watched from the porch as he stared, said something quiet, and wound up, tossing the rig with all his might into the water, where it landed with a small splash and sank out of sight.

“He shouldn’t litter,” Tred whispered.

“Let him have this,” Mike replied.

Mac returned, beard damp from the drizzle that had started while they’d been inside. “Anyone want another brewski?”

The beeramid grew taller, and Mavrus’s memory grew fuzzier, and Tred’s notebooks inched closer to people’s eyelines, and finally, the room warm with Mike’s fiery belches and something trite on TV, Mac spoke again.

“Listen, guys, I know I’m probably gonna get cut off, but I really do appreciate you dudes. You’re my bros, and I couldn’t have gotten through this without you. I love you guys, man.”

Mavrus had opened his mouth to interrupt, but thought better, and said only, “Love you guys too.”

“Man, I love you guys!” Tred said, throwing an arm around Mike’s shoulders, who laughed too.

“The band of boys is unstoppable!” Mike yelled, and lifted Mac up to place a forty-fifth beer can on the stack.

“Careful, dude,” Mavrus warned.

“Steady goes it!”

“Mac, you got it, dude!”

“Fucking look out!”

They’d start a new one in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> my research for this was just rewatching my beach week "vlogs" and going through old texts and photos so shoutout to my friends for the beeramid and the five-slice cajun seasoning grilled cheese disaster.  
> edit: rip hungry mike but hungry dave i'm so proud of you for feeling confident enough in your new name! i am not editing this but trans hungry dave rights


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